 Notice. New forum software under development. It's going to miss a few functions and look a bit ugly for a while, but I'm working on it full time now as the old forum was too unstable. Couple days, all good. If you notice any issues, please contact me. |
Forum Index : Other Stuff : hydrogen generation
| Author | Message | ||||
raman1deol Newbie  Joined: 11/07/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1 |
generate hydrogen by using 1 aluminum 2 water 3 sodium hydroxide ( caustic soda) very cheap way to make hydrogen rather then using hh0 generatores and wasting electrcity. thnak u raman deol |
||||
Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
Hey Raman I could see you were getting an error when you were trying to upload a image or file. Could you tell me more about what you were trying to upload. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
||||
MacGyver Guru  Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
raman1deol I'll go you one better: Mix up some baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) and PURE water, then plop in two electrodes. One electrode must be aluminum and the other must be high-nickel-content stainless steel. This creates a liquid diode, meaning that electricity will pass only one way through the thing. I'm telling you that because I don't remember which is the cathode and which is the anode, but suffice to say, when a d.c. electric current is passed through it, if it doesn't start bubbling, you've got the two wires backwards; switch 'em. "Reduction occurs at the cathode" is the rule, so my educated guess is the stainless steel electrode is where you attach the negative wire, but that could be wrong. No biggie; like I said before, just switch 'em. The idea here is to use FREE-GARNERED power from either solar or wind to run this thing. The high nickel content of the stainless steel electrode is the kicker. It allows it to act as a catylist and there is no consumption of either aluminum or stainless steel in the reaction. In other words, there is no sacrificial electrode in this model. You will run out of water though, so you'll have to keep an eye on the water level. When it runs out, the reaction stops; no more gas production. This will produce both oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen will bubble off the cathode and oxygen at the anode. To "scrub" the oxygen off the mixture and garner pure hydrogen, pass the gas mixture through steel wool or iron filings. This will cause instant "rust" but the remaining gas is pure hydrogen. Since making hydrogen using electricity takes more energy input than you get out, it only makes sense when the power source is relatively FREE! How do I know all this? I did hydrogen-generation research for several years until one day I had a little "accident" that rocked the entire neighborhood with a hydrogen explosion. My neighbor called the police. Two days later the city bomb squad showed up at my door and the rest is history. My hydrogen experimentation came to a screeching halt! Hydrogen gas is the lightest element in the universe; it goes UP fast. It doesn't really "explode" but it burns at something like a million feet per second, so it's as close as you get to an explosion if it gets united with oxygen and a spark. Be careful out there! . . . . . Mac Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
||||
| electrondady1 Senior Member  Joined: 12/02/2009 Location: CanadaPosts: 208 |
until they come up with(probably have already) a practical way to store hydrogen, the best way for me to utilize it, is to burn it as fast as i can make it. especially when the heating season in Canada is about 8 months long. you can split the h2o molecule with as little as 2 volts. and when you burn it , it turns back into water from what i have read the best electrolyte is potassium hydroxide (lye) one source of that is wood ash. at some point, hydrogen will be the obvious choice. |
||||
powerednut Senior Member Joined: 09/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 221 |
I'm kind of curious why you need to "scrub" off the oxygen by passing it through the steel/iron filter. Can you expand on that a little for me Mac? When doing electrolosis in school we just used to stick a divider (normally plastic) in the water above and between the electrodes. Then everything coming off one side is hydrogen (the more bubbly of the 2 electrodes) and everything coming off the other is oxygen. Whichever gas you wanted you'd put a collector (upside down funnel) over the top. The teacher had a better rig that looks a lot like the one here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis. I'm pretty sure the electrodes we had to test were platinum, steel, copper, zinc and graphite. don't remeber which worked best (each group got a different set of electrodes). I also pretty sure we didn't use different electrodes for + and -, but one of the other tables may have tested that. |
||||
| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi powerednut I have found that stainless steel works the best for plates, and bi carbonate of soda (baking powder) works with less plate degradation, I didn't separate the two gasses as they where burnt right away with minimal storage. The system was used as a fuel enhancer on a truck. I did use it for cutting and welding in the workshop by separating hydrogen and oxygen and compressing with an oil free compressor. I went to a plasma cutter which was much less trouble and cost less to run, so the experiment went no further. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
||||
| electrondady1 Senior Member Joined: 12/02/2009 Location: CanadaPosts: 208 |
next to politics, green religions and the short comings of capitalism, hydrogen is one of my favourite subjects. i've been saving old stainless steel cutlery for electrodes. but after scavenging neo magnets from computer hard drives i find myself in possession of something like 200 hard drive disks. they're round and very shiny so it's impossible for me to throw them away or scrap them since they are aluminum and coated in platinum i wonder if they would make good electrodes? |
||||
| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Electrondady While the first three are persona non grata except as jokes, the hydrogen has a lot going for it. I tried aluminium for electrodes but it turns into white sludge with very little electrolyte, I would suggest you hang them on strings and use them as bird chasers in your organic wiz bang garden, or throw them at your local politician if you do not agree with his / her lies. The guys here use them for the base of a anometer project if the bearing is still good. You may try de-plating the platinum off the as its worth a bit now. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
||||
| Barry T Coles Senior Member Joined: 30/07/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 109 |
I've always thought they may make good slip rings, but then again I think some strange things. Cheers Barry I need to learn from the mistakes of others. I dont have the time to make them all myself. |
||||
| MacGyver Guru Joined: 12/05/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 1329 |
powerednut Sorry for the late reply here; I've not been following this thread. Here's the deal with hydrogen: Do it just as I've explained and you can't go wrong. Why I separated the O2 from the H2 is simple. Hydrogen burns "explosively" at 4% oxidation. If you leave the two gasses together as in "Brown's Gas" they will do just that, explode. That's kinda what happened with my little bomb-squad incident. As for hydrogen and stainless steel electrodes, it's a matter of chemistry. Hydroen gas has an "affinity" (is physically attracted to) for the metal, nickel. Stainless steel has a high nickel content, which is basically what makes it "stainless steel". Stainless electrodes are the most robust and you can use the same electrode for both the cathode (+) and the anode (-) BUT if you use aluminum for one and stainless for the other WITH baking soda and water as sthe electrolyte, the hydrogen gas production is greatly enhanced. In other words, you get more product gas. As for the comment, "you can split the h2o molecule with as little as 2 volts.", I'd like to say it's the amperage more than the voltage that produces the gas separation. The amps do the work. In fact one way to create only hydrogen without any oxygen is to pass a very high voltage (50,000 + volts) from a stainless steel electrode through pure water (non-ionic as in triple distilled) to an aluminum electrode. I think the fact that aluminum has a +3 covalence has something to do with the production using this method, I'm not sure. Suffice to say, doing it this way results in two atoms of hydrogen gas without the oxyen, because the oxygen (from the water molecule) combines with the aluminum to make aluminum oxide, which is very hard and is used commercially in abrasive tools. Hope that clears things up a bit. . . . . . Mac Nothing difficult is ever easy! Perhaps better stated in the words of Morgan Freeman, "Where there is no struggle, there is no progress!" Copeville, Texas |
||||
| electrondady1 Senior Member Joined: 12/02/2009 Location: CanadaPosts: 208 |
i think it's reasonable to assume that at least some of the people who come to this site have the capability of producing electricity. my little verticals spin in the slightest breeze. but they don't produce a charging voltage until they are at 60 rpm. i'm interested in utilizing that voltage, from 2-14 volts dc. i think it would be possible to set up an electrolytic cell as the default circuit and a shunt to other loads when voltage output permits. i'm curious as to what the resistance might be for a good electrolytic cell. and what sort of load it would place on my mills . in looking at these cells,i see a resemblance to a capacitor. and i get curious about how they would behave if they were just part of another circuit. many of you are familiar with a fellow named Ed Lenz. ed doesn't post on windmill sites much anymore but is experimenting a great deal with entropy. the idea being to mimic nature were there is no such thing as waste . we normally use a high intensity electrical current once, to do a specific job. but on the back side of that the possibility to use that same current(now at a lessor intensity)to do a second job. one of he limiting factors in electrolysis is the creation of heat in the electrolyte so we need to think about using that hot fluid . say for instance you use the electrical power to run a pump. down stream from that, and electrolytic cells creating hydrogen/oxygen. the electrolyte heats up as a result of the currant and we use that pump to circulate it to were it could be useful. a form of co generation i guess. |
||||
Greenbelt Guru Joined: 11/01/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 566 |
electrondady1 and all who would like to comment. A 5 Megawatt Mill stands in the Desert, 300 yards away stands another and another, a stand of 20 units. At the base of each unit a group of 6 underground cisterns are filled with electrolyte and many Electrodes. Isolated and Electrically insulated from the Soil and fitted with Non metal Pipes. The Grid Line Towers are connected to the mills with a series connection through the underground Cells, A cell is a cell no mater the size, A- 2 volt Drop across the Cell would not be missed, To accommodate the Cells with DC current the Electrode Metals would be chosen as, (See McGyvers post above) and the 3phase AC power will have 6 paths to complete the circuit. A pipeline will vent the Oxygen and transport the hydrogen for hundreds of kilometers while providing storage, Service valves to be installed at reasonable interval to service vehicle tanks. Question? Where would the equivalent Power loss show up? it seems most certainly that the cell would have a much higher Voltage drop. This is something I have thought about for some time, at least 15 years. Too bad I don't have a grid to play with!. --------Cheers, Roe Time has proven that I am blind to the Obvious, some of the above may be True? |
||||
| grub Senior Member Joined: 27/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 169 |
Why vent the oxygen. Pipe it to be used also. Waste not, want not. |
||||
| electrondady1 Senior Member Joined: 12/02/2009 Location: CanadaPosts: 208 |
the way they run our world is puzzling, makes you shake your head. we need to concentrate on our own grids if you know what i mean. why not pipe the oxygen to hospitals and old folks homes. give it to pregnant mothers, what ever. its a by product of the process and what ever return it creates offsets the price of hydrogen fuel. |
||||
| Greenbelt Guru Joined: 11/01/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 566 |
grub wrote; Why vent the oxygen. Pipe it to be used also. Waste not, want not. Venting the oxygen is not wasting it! The engines will need the oxygen to operate where ever they happen to be. this will replace atmospheric Oxygen. the stuff we breathe to stay alive. when you think about it, How many trees required to replace the Oxygen used by one 4000 km. commercial flight? several tons of fuel converted to water and carbon dioxide, each molecule of water contains 2-O as does carbon di-oxide. The rate of Oxygen being consumed world wide is staggering. the trees are disappearing We need to be concerned about our next breath. -------Cheers, Roe BTW. we definitely need a river through our Desert wind Farm! Time has proven that I am blind to the Obvious, some of the above may be True? |
||||
| electrondady1 Senior Member Joined: 12/02/2009 Location: CanadaPosts: 208 |
here's another angle on electrolysis I'm curious about, how do the cells behave at sub zero temperatures. it doesn't happen much in deserts but it happens around here on a regular basis for about five months a year. i wonder what happens when hydrogen meets ethylene glycol. |
||||
| Greenbelt Guru Joined: 11/01/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 566 |
electrondady1 Wrote how do the cells behave at sub zero temperatures. Potassium hydroxide used as the electrolyte will act the same as sulfuric acid does in your battery. The Battery must have a good charge to have a rich acid content. ( a Dead Battery will Freeze.) I don't know if you have seen this, Thought you may find this interesting--------Cheers, Roe Time has proven that I am blind to the Obvious, some of the above may be True? |
||||
| electrondady1 Senior Member Joined: 12/02/2009 Location: CanadaPosts: 208 |
hey! thanks ! that's a lot of info. |
||||
| Greenbelt Guru Joined: 11/01/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 566 |
raman1deol I seem to have a problem posting accurate info. In the post dtd. 02 august, 2011, I stated;each molecule of water contains 2-O as does carbon di-oxide. I will rewrite the statement Each molecule of water contains 1 atom of Oxygen and Carbon dioxide contains 2.----------Cheers, Roe Time has proven that I am blind to the Obvious, some of the above may be True? |
||||
| electrondady1 Senior Member Joined: 12/02/2009 Location: CanadaPosts: 208 |
i think if we wait for changes involving hydrogen usage from the top down we will wait a very long time. just like recycling plastic, something like 8% of oil /gas production is used to create plastic. the big boys don't mind if we bury garbage or if we burn garbage as long as we don't reuse it . on board electrolysis devises could be factory installed. but an increase of 10%-20% mileage will only hurt fuel sales. hydrogen will always be "the fuel of the future" unless we start to use it ourselves. |
||||
 Print this page |
